The day Exeter’s nightlife died

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May 9^th, 2017. Mark it on your calendar. It was the day that Exeter’s nightlife died. It was never exactly award-winning, limping along like a 19-year-old dog that can’t control its bowels or see anymore; nothing in comparison to the supple Doberman that is, for example, Newcastle’s nightlife, but it did its job in a quaint sort of way. Nonetheless, the time has come to take the handgun, and walk it out into the back garden for the last time, for the death bells toll.

we must shut down all the clubs in this godforsaken town

To clarify, a number of events occurred at Unit 1 on this date that mean we must shut down all the clubs in this godforsaken town. The first transgression came when the DJ instigated a conga line. A conga line. In a club. A conga line is the kind of thing your nan would make you join at the reception to your Auntie Christine’s third wedding. You’d have to indulge her because she’s had precisely three glasses of rosé wine, and is at the stage of drunk that comes after asking you the same three questions about uni on repeat, but before the stage of drunk where she’s dancing on a table with some guy in his mid-twenties and is getting way too into it. But seeing one at a night club was very unnerving, almost like seeing a local.

The middle-class neon car crash unfolded whilst i spectated from the sidelines

So this middle-class neon car crash was unfolding whilst I spectated from the side-lines, but it soon got worse. Everyone was all conga’d out, so the DJ decided to really crank things up by making the entire congregation sit on the floor, fronts facing backs, arses securely wedged between the legs of whoever was behind. Then he got them to start swaying. I couldn’t tell you the point of this if my life depended on it. Unless it was an elaborate ruse concocted by the cleaning staff to wipe any spilled alcohol off the floor early in the game, I fail to see how acting like you’re in a canoe contributes to the ‘going out’ atmosphere. Granted, this was a Cheesy Tuesdays, but I have attended a fair few Cheesies in my time here and never once have I witnessed a DJ with the immense chutzpah required to milk the word ‘cheesy’ for every last drop, but by God he did it.

I’m convinced he was told he would be DJing an 8-year-old’s birthday party

He didn’t stop there, either. Once everyone was back on their feet with sufficiently damp jeans, a length of black rope was brought out for the thrilling denouement to the DJ’s three plagues: limbo. Music began to play, and the limboing commenced. Everyone was stumbling under the rope like a bunch of drunks on one of those cruises where old people go from port to port deciding which particular attribute of the local population they want to hate, and the DJ was loving it. I’m convinced he was told he would be DJing an 8-year-old’s birthday party, and didn’t have time to change his playlist when he turned up.

Whatever the reasons for this school disco of nightmares, it was terrible. It’s another notch on the bedpost for ‘things Unit 1 does wrong’ along with that time a bartender did blackface. So I hope you all understand that we’re cancelling Exeter’s nightlife now. It’s the fairest thing to do. Time to hang up our VK bottles and start looking at train prices to Bristol.